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GREAT ISSUE 



JOHN FARWELL MOORS 




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THE GREAT ISSUE 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

DISCLOSED BY THE LEADERS 

AND THE PLAIN PEOPLE IN 

EUROPE AND AMERICA 



BY 

JOHN FARWELL MOORS 




BOSTON 

MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 

MDCCCCXIX 






COPYRIGHT, 1919 
BY MARSHALL JONES COMPANY 



J/4U rights reseri'eJ 
By permission of the New York Times 



THK UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



m 28 1919 

ICI.A5 1 17 71 



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TO Mr WIFE 



THE GREAT ISSUE 



>• 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

The President's Attitude Before the 
European War 

TO understand the part being played 
by America in the world drama of 
today one should draw aside the cur- 
tain on President Wilson at the beginning 
of his first Administration, facing the sus- 
picion and hatred of Latin America for this 
country. He soon faced also the scorn of 
influential men here, who could see only 
what Mr. Hughes called "weakness and 
vacillation" and "a confused chapter of 
blunders" in the two invasions of Mexico, 
in the retreat from Vera Cruz, in the em- 
bargoes and repeals of embargoes on arms, 
in the support of now one alleged bandit, 
now another, and in the refusal to recog- 
nize the Dictator, Huerta, when England, 
France, and Germany — great nations gov- 
erned by the old diplomacy — recognized 
him. The attacks on American citizens and 
their property were held to be the only real 
[II] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

concern of this country. Yet in those de- 
spised days the foundations were being laid 
of America's present world leadership. And 
the conflict of ideals then was the precursor 
of the greater conflict now. 

In four addresses before the war in Eu- 
rope had shed its lurid illumination on the 
world, President Wilson expounded his con- 
ception of a new and just diplomacy. Eight 
days after his first inauguration he said: 
" One of the chief objects of my Administra- 
tion will be to cultivate the friendship and 
deserve the confidence of our sister repub- 
lics of Central and Latin America." Typ- 
ical expressions in the other addresses are:* 

"The peace, prosperity, and contentment 
of Mexico mean more to us than merely an 
enlarged field for our enterprise. We shall 
yet prove to the Mexican people that we 
know how to serve them without first think- 
ing how we shall serve ourselves. Human 
rights, national integrity and opportunity, 
as against material interests, that is the main 
issue which we now have to face. I know 
what the response of America will be, be- 
cause America was created to realize a pro- 

* Many of the quotations have been condensed. 
[12] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

gram like that. We are the friends of con- 
stitutional government in America; we are 
its champions, because in no other way can 
our neighbors, to whom we wish to make 
proof of our friendship, work out their own 
development in peace and liberty. The 
United States will never again seek an ad- 
ditional foot of territory by conquest." 

From these addresses conservatives se- 
lected two words, " watchful waiting," and 
ignored the rest. 

His Attitude After the Outbreak 
of War 

After the outbreak of war in Europe 
" red-blooded" Americans became more ex- 
asperated with him. But he went his way 
unperturbed, steadily developing his con- 
ception of the mission of America. On 
December 8, 1914, he said: 

"We are a true friend of all nations. 
Therein lies our greatness. We are the 
champions of peace and concord. It is our 
dearest hope that this character and reputa- 
tion may presently, in God's providence, 
bring us an opportunity seldom vouchsafed 
[13] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

any nation, to counsel and obtain peace in 
the world and reconciliation and a healing 
settlement." 

On May 19, 191 5, addressing newly nat- 
uralized citizens, just after the Lusitania 
had been sunk, he spoke of America as " the 
hope of the world " and said: 

" My urgent advice to you would be, not 
only to think of America first, but also to 
think first of humanity. America was cre- 
ated to unite mankind by those passions 
which lift, not by the passions which sep- 
arate and debase. You were drawn across 
the ocean by some vision of a new kind of 
justice." 

From this speech, four words, " too proud 
to fight," were selected for derision. 
On January 6, 1916, he spoke of the 

"solid, eternal foundations of justice and 
humanity. These are the things for which 
the world has waited with prayerful heart. 
God grant that it may be granted to America 
to lift this light on high for the illumina- 
tion of the world." 

How little impression these aspirations 
made on influential men at the time may be 
[14] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

deduced from the following sonnet pub- 
lished by a foremost American writer, on 
Washington's Birthday, 1916: 

TO WOODROW WILSON 
Not even if I possessed your trust in speech 

Could I make any (fit for use) fit you : 
You've wormed yourself beyond descrip- 
tion's reach ; 
Truth if she touched you would become 
untrue. 
Satire has seared a host of evil fames, 
Has withered emperors by her fierce lam- 
poons; 
History has lashes that have flayed the names 
Of public cowards, hypocrites, poltroons; 
You go immune. Cased in your self-esteem 
The next world cannot scathe you, nor can 
this; 
No fact can stab through your complacent 
dream, 
Nor present laughter nor the future's hiss. 
But if its fathers did this land control 
Dead Washington would wake and blast 
your soul. 

At the opening of the Presidential cam- 
paign in 1916, war with Mexico was held to 
be inevitable, and conservatives were more 
[15] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

bitter than ever over the President's hand- 
ling of European w^ar problems. The tone 
of his addresses, however, gives no indica- 
tion of the rising storm. He did not be- 
lieve that America ought to fight for any 
of the traditional reasons but as Robinson 
and West in " The Foreign Policy of Wood- 
row Wilson" point out: "He was well 
aware that on the principles he had laid 
down, his country might inevitably be 
drawn into war." Thus on February 26, 
he said : 

"When we seek safety at the expense of 
humanity, I will believe that I have been 
mistaken in what I have conceived to be 
the spirit of American history." 

And on April 17, he said : " America will 
have forgotten her traditions whenever she 
fights merely for herself under such circum- 
stances as will show that she has forgotten 
to fight for all mankind. The only excuse 
that America can ever have for the assertion 
of physical force is that she asserts it in 
behalf of humanity." 

In addresses on May 27 and Memorial 
Day, one sees the germs of the fourteen 
points. 

[16] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

<' The peace of the world," said he, " must 
henceforth depend on a new and more 
wholesome diplomacy. Every people has 
the right to choose the sovereignty under 
which they shall live. Small states have a 
right to enjoy the same respect that great 
nations expect. The world has a right to 
be freed from every disturbance of its peace 
that has its origin in aggression. The 
United States is willing to become a part- 
ner in any feasible association formed to 
realize these objects. I shall never con- 
sent to an entangling alliance, but I would 
gladly assent to a disentangling alliance, 
which would disentangle the peoples of 
the world from those combinations which 
seek their own separate interests, and unite 
the peoples of the world to preserve peace 
on a basis of common right and justice." 

Enter Mr. Charles E. Hughes 

On June lo, Mr. Hughes, because of "a 
national exigency transcending merely par- 
tisan considerations," shut behind him the 
door of the United States Supreme Court 
and became the Republican candidate. 
Said he: 

[17] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

" I Stand for an Americanism that knows 
no ulterior purpose, for a patriotism that is 
single and complete. We have suffered in- 
calculably from the weak and vacillating 
course which has been taken with regard to 
Mexico. We utterly failed to appreciate 
and discharge our plain duty to our own 
citizens. We demand adequate provision 
for national defense and we condemn the 
inexcusable neglect that has been shown in 
this matter of first national importance." 

Senator Harding, Chairman of the Re- 
publican Convention, in 1916, said in his 
keynote address: ^'The Republican policies 
afford the ample means (for naval defense) 
without conscious burdens upon the people. 
Under any system security is economy itself. 
Justice points the way through the safe 
channel of neutrality." 

The Republican platform said: 

"We believe in maintaining a straight 
and honest neutrality between the belliger- 
ents in the great war," and gave as the pur- 
pose of preparedness "to make certain the 
security of our own people within our own 
borders." 

[18] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

While Mr. Hughes and the Chairman of 
the Republican Convention and the Repub- 
lican platform were thus consistently up- 
holding the principle of "safety first," 
Colonel Roosevelt charged President Wil- 
son with having "taught us to put 'safety 
first,' safety before duty and honor, to put 
that materialism which expresses itself in 
mere money-making, and in the fatted ease 
of life, above all spiritual things, above all 
the high and fine instincts of the soul," and 
said of Mr. Wilson's Administration: 

" From the standpoint of national honor 
and interest it stood on an even lower level 
than the Administration of Buchanan. No 
Administration in our history has done more 
to relax the spring of the national will and 
to deaden the national conscience." 

In those tense days, with the outcome of 
the campaign in the gravest doubt, the 
President steadily refused to go to war with 
Mexico, though his opponents incessantly 
urged that not to intervene was a disgrace. 
Colonel Roosevelt's description of Mr. Wil- 
son's dealings with Mexico as " a shameless 
history" expressed the view of the most in- 
[19] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

fluential men in America. With impunity, 
the Colonel called the President worse than 
Pontius Pilate. "Hundreds" (of Ameri- 
cans), said he, "have been killed, and Mr. 
Wilson has watched their fortunes as disin- 
terestedly as if they had been rats pursued 
by terriers." 

In the face of bitter and wide-spread 
criticism Mr. Wilson expounded his Mexi- 
can policy thus: 

"The easiest thing is to strike. The bru- 
tal thing is the impulsive thing. Do you 
think the glory of America would be en- 
hanced by a war of conquest in Mexico? 
Do you think that any act of violence by a 
powerful nation like this against a weak 
neighbor would reflect distinction upon the 
annals of the United States? We have the 
evidence of a competent witness, the first 
Napoleon, that force had never accom- 
plished anything permanent. Force will 
not accomplish anything permanent, I ven- 
ture to say, in the great struggle on the other 
side of the sea. The permanent things will 
be accomplished afterward when the opin- 
ion of mankind is brought to bear upon the 



issues." 



[20] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

'' Some gentlemen say they want to help 
Mexico, and the way they want to help her 
is to overwhelm her with force. That is the 
long way as well as the wrong way. After 
fighting, you have a nation full of justified 
suspicion and animated by well-founded 
hostility and hatred. You will have shut 
every door, as it were, of steel against you. 
I will try to serve America by trying to serve 
Mexico herself." 

''The people of Mexico are striving for 
the rights that are fundamental to life and 
happiness — fifteen million oppressed men, 
overburdened women, and pitiful children. 
Some of the leaders of the revolution may 
often have been mistaken and violent and 
selfish, but the revolution itself was inevi- 
table and is right. Mistakes I may have 
made in this perplexing business, but not in 
purpose or object." 

In his speeches, Mr. Hughes emphasized 
"dominant Americanism," "America first 
and America efficient," and " firmness." Of 
our European diplomacy he said : " Instead 
of whittling away our formal statements 
by equivocal conversations, we needed the 

[2l] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

straight, direct, and decisive representations 
which every diplomat and foreign office 
would understand." Commenting on this 
passage, the New York Sun said: "We get 
a new light on the enormity of the damage 
wrought by Mr. Wilson in occasional flashes 
of insight like this." 

One may contrast Mr. Wilson's address 
of June 28: 

" ' America first ' means nothing until you 
translate it into what you do. America 
should be ready to vindicate at whatever 
cost the principles of liberty, of justice, and 
of humanity. You cheer the sentiment, but 
do you realize what it means? It means 
that you have not only got to be just to your 
fellowmen, but that as a nation you have got 
to be just to other nations. It comes high. 
It is easy to think first of the national interest 
of America, but it is not easy to think first 
of what America, if she loves justice, ought 
to do in international afifairs. I believe that 
at whatever cost America should be just to 
other peoples and treat other peoples as she 
demands that they should treat her. That 
I am ready to fight for at any cost to myself." 
[22] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

The National Hughes Alliance 

In October the National Hughes Alliance 
published a series of advertisements, over 
the names of twenty-seven prominent citi- 
zens, including Theodore Roosevelt, Wil- 
liam H. Taft, Joseph H. Choate, Robert T. 
Lincoln, and Elihu Root. The following 
extracts indicate their tenor: 

FLAG OR RAG 

Mexico is either a nation or a mob to be 
estimated and dealt with by standards of 
civilization or to be treated as an ungovern- 
able barbarian. 

Every species of shame that can be heaped 
upon a proud Republic has been inflicted 
upon us by a people whose de facto head the 
successor of Washington and Lincoln de- 
lights to honor with the consideration due 
only to political and moral equals. 

THEREFORE VOTE FOR CHARLES E. HUGHES 



WE ARE NOT PREPARED FOR 
PEACE 

Our business is BUSINESS. 
Year by year it becomes more apparent 
[23] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

that the markets of the world must be kept 
open to American industries. 

We cannot extend our trade farther than 
we are able to defend it. 

The rivalries that begin in commerce end 
on battlefields. The history of war is green 
with international jealousies. Every great 
conflict in modern times had its origin in 
some question of property rights. 

We are now universal competitors and 
are destined to grow constantly stronger 
rivals for a power which other people will 
not surrender without a trial of wit and will 
and, if needs be, force. 

We know our temper and our intents and 
we neither challenge defiance nor hurl it, in 
the creation of an army and the upbuilding 
of a navy sufficiently impressive to guaran- 
tee respect for our potency. 

THEREFORE VOTE FOR CHARLES E. HUGHES 

Let us contrast what President Wilson 
said on October 26: 

" A great many men are complaining that 
the Government of the United States has 
not the spirit of other Governments, which 

[24] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

is to put force, the army and the navy of that 
Government, behind investments in foreign 
countries. Just so certainly as you do this 
you join the chaos of hostile and competing 
ambitions." 



Thus we see the issues drawn. Mr. Wil- 
son conceived America as the servant of 
mankind. Mr. Hughes's "out-and-out one 
hundred per cent Americanism" and his 
"America first and America efficient" 
meant the assertion of American rights. 
The advertisements of the Hughes Alliance 
implied that these rights were to be main- 
tained, even at the expense of others, with 
almost Teutonic indifference. 



America Enters the War 

From the address of January 22, 1917 — 
sometimes called the greatest State paper 
ever written — the critics selected for de- 
rision three words, " peace without victory." 
Later, they dwelt on the President's abrupt 
change of view, as they conceived it, in his 
war address of April 2. In reality, the war 
had become clearly a war for humanity and 
[25] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

justice, and, therefore, as he had said, Amer- 
ica must enter it. The two addresses are 
parts of a consistent and expanding pro- 
gram. He himself affirmed this on April 2 : 

" I have the same objects in mind that I 
had on January 22." In the earlier address, 
his object was justice guaranteed by a 
"concert of power." In the later address, 
his object was justice to be maintained 
"against selfish and autocratic power," 
and "a universal dominion of right by 
a concert of free peoples." Thus, while 
the means had changed, the ends had 
not changed. In the earlier address, he 
sought a peace "worth guaranteeing that 
will win the approval of mankind." "A 
victor's terms" (as in the case of Mexico) 
" would leave a bitter memory on which 
peace would rest as on a quicksand." In the 
later address, he first emphasized the fact, 
consistently urged afterward, that "we have 
no quarrel with the German people. It 
was not on their impulse that their Gov- 
ernment acted in entering the war. We 
are glad to fight for the ultimate peace of 
the world and the liberation of its people, 
the German peoples included." 
[26] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

The People Versus the Statesmen 
The Flag Day address of June 14, 1917, 
develops his conception of "the military 
masters of Germany." Their "extraordi- 
nary insults and aggressions " had forced us 
into the war. "But," he repeats, "we are 
not the enemies of the German people. 
We are vaguely conscious that we are fight- 
ing their cause as well as our own. The 
military masters under whom Germany is 
bleeding see clearly to what point fate has 
brought them. If they are forced back an 
inch, their power will fall to pieces like a 
house of cards. If they fail, the world may 
unite for peace, and Germany may be of the 
union." 

In his reply to the Pope, his address to 
Congress December 4, 1917, his declaration 
of his fourteen points, and his speeches of 
April 6, July 4, and September 27, 191 8, 
the ideas with which his diplomacy began 
finally crystallize. His reliance on prin- 
ciples is unchanged, whether the outlook is 
dark or bright. 

"When the German people have spokes- 
men whom we can believe and these spokes- 
[27] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

men in the name of their people accept the 
common judgment as to what shall be the 
basis of law, we shall be free to do an un- 
precedented thing — to base peace on gen- 
erosity and justice — justice done to every 
nation, our enemies as well as our friends. 
I should be ashamed in the presence of 
affairs so grave to use the weak language 
of hatred. What we seek is the reign of 
law, based on the consent of the governed, 
and sustained by the organized opinion of 
mankind. Plain people still fear they are 
getting what they ask for in statesmen's 
terms of territorial arrangements and di- 
visions of power, not in terms of broad- 
visioned justice and mercy and peace and 
the satisfaction of those deep longings that 
seem the only things worth fighting a war 
for that engulfs the world." 

"A supreme moment of history has come. 
The eyes of the people have been opened 
and they see. The hand of God is laid upon 
the nations. He will show them favor, I 
devoutly believe, only if they rise to the 
clear heights of His own justice and mercy." 

On September 27 he invited the leaders 
of the allied governments to say frankly 

[28] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

whether they thought him mistaken in his 
interpretation of the issues involved in the 
war, as if he foresaw that the end was near. 

Opposition of Conservatives 
Conservatives here tolerated what seemed 
to them the President's academic phrases, 
while he and they were alike primarily pro- 
war, satisfied that the sword was mightier 
than the pen. But as victory approached 
and his conceptions seemed possible of 
fulfillment, they welcomed quite opposite 
views from Senator Lodge, for example: 

"The only peace for us is one that rests 
on hard physical facts. No peace that satis- 
fies Germany in any degree can ever satisfy 
us." 

Senator Lodge did not wait for the Presi- 
dent to reply to Maximilian's first appeal, 
but interposed: 

"There is only one thing to be done. 
That is to put Germany in such a position 
by physical guarantees that she cannot break 
out again. Put her behind the bars." 

Throughout the vital diplomatic ex- 
changes, leading to the surrender of the 

[29] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

Germans, conservatives here were con- 
vinced that only the interpositions of Mr. 
Lodge saved the situation. While the Presi- 
dent was gathering the fruits of his reiter- 
ated offers of justice and mercy to the Ger- 
man people, Mr. Lodge was publicly in- 
sisting on " retributive justice," and was 
saying: "I regretted that the President 
asked questions inviting discussion. If we 
are to end this war as it ought to be ended, 
are we not ready to take the onus of carry- 
ing it on till that end is reached?" The 
Boston Transcript cried: "The Germans 
will not have to wait another note from Mr. 
Wilson to ascertain the answer of America 
to their 'offer of peace.' The answer was 
delivered yesterday by Mr. Lodge. The 
nation hails him as its spokesman." 

One may contrast the opinion of Cardinal 
Mercier, whose land escaped being further 
laid waste by a needless continuation of 
war: "The triumph of justice is complete. 
Your President is one of the greatest states- 
men of all times. The Germans' dark 
plotting and treacherous diplomacy were 
completely foiled by President Wilson's 
magnificently honest and implacably just 
messages." 

[30] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

With empires crashing, revolutions flar- 
ing up, millions starving, and a new world 
order trying to struggle into life, Colonel 
Roosevelt responded to the President's ap- 
peal for support that the nation's " inward 
unity of purpose" might be "evident to all 
the world " by urging the election of a Re- 
publican Congress, that Europe might see 
that the " fighting men," and not the " rheto- 
ricians " were uppermost. Such an outcome 
would assure our allies that America was 
determined to speed up the war (it was all 
over in a fortnight) and "serve notice on 
Germany and her vassal States that they 
would have to deal henceforth with the 
resolute and straightforward soul of the 
American people, and not merely with the 
obscure purposes and wavering will of Mr. 
Wilson." 

In Scrihner's for November, within a 
fortnight of the complete triumph of jus- 
tice, according to Cardinal Mercier, Mr. 
Lodge said : 

"No peace coming from Germany must 
be considered at all. Our business is to put 
her back into a padded cell. We must go to 
Berlin and make peace there." 
[31] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

Senator Poindexter apparently shared his 
view, for he said : 

" If the President undertakes to agree 
with Germany before her army is con- 
quered, he should be impeached." 

The attitude of minor American conserva- 
tives during the triumph of justice may be 
gauged by the following from a conserva- 
tive editorial: 

" The crawling and unclean thing that the 
world calls Germany strikes back today in 
another attempt to drag deeper into the bog 
of reptilian diplomacy the Government that 
it enticed a fortnight ago into a contami- 
nating correspondence, etc." 

The President of the Middlesex Club 
asked publicly: "What is there in the rec- 
ord of the United States which should lead 
the Germans to the conclusion that we are 
the only people yellow enough to consider 
negotiations of peace at this time?" 

With the winning of the war, the Presi- 
dent's purposes, including the fourteen 
points, came to the very front of the stage. 
Dr. E. J. Dillon in the Fortnightly for 
[32] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

October gives a transatlantic view thus: 
"Mr. Wilson is in grim earnest about his 
scheme of vs^orld salvation. If he can but 
lay its foundations, he w^ill have established 
a stronger claim on the gratitude of the 
human race than any man yet born of 
woman." The Republicans began at last 
to discuss these points. Colonel Roosevelt 
said: "Many, probably most, of the four- 
teen points are thoroughly mischievous," 
adding that he did not want "gunmen" in 
the league. Senator Lodge exclaimed: 
" Can you imagine our forming a league 
with Germany one of the members?" Sena- 
tor Cummins became ironical: " Let us for- 
get the League of Nations which is to rule 
the earth in accordance with the Sermon 
on the Mount." And they all cried that 
only two words, "unconditional surrender," 
should be tolerated in discussing the issues 
of the war. 

The contagion of hate has spread rapidly 
among those calling themselves Christians 
and once shocked by the German " Hymn 
of Hate." In October the Atlantic Monthly 
published "The Duty of Hate," by an 
American professor of ethics. Most culti- 
vated Americans have sympathized with 
[33] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

this view. A Japanese scholar writes: " In 
our dealings with the Huns we are dealing 
with degraded devils." A former teacher 
writes: "Germany must not be merely cut 
down, but uprooted before a safe foundation 
for Christian peace can be built." A corre- 
spondent of the New Republic put the mat- 
ter thus : " Cannot the Allies hand out to the 
Germans what the Germans would hand out 
to us if they could win? Kill every German 
willing to fight for the war lords, and when 
through let Germany rot." In Life an Amer- 
ican soldier leans nonchalantly against the 
ruins of Berlin. The caption is : " And then 
we can talk peace." Beside the headlines, 
"Austria Begs for Mercy," the Middlesex 
Club proclaimed this "creed": "We mili- 
tant Republicans stand for relentless prose- 
cution of the war. Those who have sowed 
the seeds of war must taste its bitter fruits 
on their own soil." Even after the armistice 
the President of the club publicly boasted 
of this creed. 

On November 6, the American people 
"repudiated" Mr. Wilson in the Congres- 
sional elections, but the Allies formally ac- 
cepted most of his program. Austria had 
been pried loose from Germany. The Ger- 
[34] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

man people had realized that we were fight- 
ing their battle, and on November ii, sur- 
rendered, accepting the President's fourteen 
points, dismissing their masters, and throw- 
ing themselves on the mercy of their former 
enemies. Maximilian said in his valedic- 
tory: "The victory for which many had 
hoped has not been granted. But the Ger- 
man people has won this greater victory 
over itself and its belief in the right of 
might." Simultaneously, we were told that 
Hoover would be sent to Europe to feed 
both friend and foe. 

Even at this supreme juncture the old 
conflict of ideals continued. The paper 
which announced "Kaiser abdicates" also 
gave these views from the reactionary 
Premier of Australia: "There is talk of 
the Kaiser's abdication. Does he take 
us for fools? Now that they (the Ger- 
mans) are beaten they whine about democ- 
racy. The whole thing is a sham. No 
statesmen can be permitted to rob us of the 
advantage so hardly won." A financial item 
said: "Securities identified with Mexican 
products have been strong. Carranza knows 
that not only the United States but Great 
Britain are prepared to force protection of 
their property, now that war is over." 
[35] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

David and Goliath 
Here we see the Goliath with whom 
David had gone forth to battle. At the 
moment when the goal seemed to have 
been reached it was made plain that from 
the uttermost ends of the earth the forces of 
reaction were arrayed against the President, 
while it was equally plain that at home the 
very first lessons of his Mexican policy had 
not been learned. On NovemiDer ii the 
President could say: 

"The object of the war is attained. 
Armed imperialism is at an end, its il- 
licit ambitions engulfed in black disaster." 
America and the Allies had "united to 
set up such a peace as will satisfy the 
longings of the whole world for disin- 
terested justice. They have a mind in the 
matter, not only, but a heart also. The vic- 
torious Governments have by unanimous 
resolution assured the peoples of the Central 
Empires that everything possible will be 
done to supply them with food." 

But the next day Senator Lodge rejoined : 

"'Judge not that ye be not judged, for 
with what judgment ye judge ye shall be 

[36] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

judged and with what measure ye mete it 
shall be measured to you again.' They (the 
Germans) are entitled to have the same 
measure meted out to them that they meted 
out to France." 

The President, furthermore, said: 

"With the fall of the ancient empires has 
come political change not merely, but revo- 
lution. To conquer with arms is to make 
only a temporary conquest. The nations 
that have learned the discipline of freedom 
are now about to make conquest of the world 
by the sheer power of example and friendly 
helpfulness." 

Senator Lodge would have none of such 
helpfulness and scouted the President's con- 
ception that there was " a broad distinction 
between the Imperial Government and the 
German people." On November i8, these 
two champions of the opposing views were 
ranged against each other thus: The Presi- 
dent issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation 
in which he reasserted, " Complete victory 
has brought us the promise of a new day in 
which justice shall replace force and in- 
[37] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

trigue among nations," while Senator Lodge 
introduced a bill requiring every one with 
the hardihood to sell anything German to 
display a sign, " Dealer in German Goods." 

The President's offers of good-will to the 
German people, if they should do what they 
have done, and the unanimous offer of food 
were as ignored by the many disciples of 
Senator Lodge as if these disciples had never 
heard of the "scrap of paper." The radio 
appeal, picked up in the heavens, from three 
German women to Mrs. Wilson and Miss 
Addams, sent apparently in the belief that 
good-will had been reestablished, and ask- 
ing that rolling stock needed to transport 
food be not taken away, disclosed in the 
newspapers a prevalent American view: 

Female Correspojident No. I. A man 
told me he had talked with several women 
about the letters from Germany appealing 
for food lest the German women and chil- 
dren starve, and every one said, "Let 'em 
starve." I would destroy Cologne Cathe- 
dral, not in malice or passion, but in stern 
and silent vengeance. 

Female Correspondent No. 2. The ef- 
frontery of the appeal to Mrs. Wilson 
makes me sick with disgust. 
[38] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

Male Correspondent No. I. What if the 
food situation in Germany is desperate? 
Let the " good " German people suffer the 
consequences of their own barbarity. 

Male Correspondent No. 2. If Germany 
got what she deserves, the wolves would 
stare out of the windows into desolation. 

Male Correspondent No. J. The mawk- 
ish sentimentality of some folks makes a 
really kind man sick at the stomach. 

Male Correspondent No. 4. Give us 
more of your editorials denouncing the 
slime. 

The Attitude of English Liberals 

English liberals had met in London, 
October 10, in answer to the invitation 
contained in Mr. Wilson's speech of Sep- 
tember 27. At this meeting, Viscount Grey 
called "firm and wise" that first letter 
to Maximilian which Mr. Lodge had " re- 
gretted" and his disciples had deplored. 
Viscount Grey added : " I am quite content 
to await further developments." He said 
that the League of Nations had been laid 
down by Mr. Wilson "on the soundest 
lines." When Germany surrendered, Mr. 
Asquith pointed out that it was not until 
[39] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

President Wilson in April, 1917, put the 
meaning of the war in a few phrases and 
boldly made a distinction between the Ger- 
man people and their Government that the 
possibility was admitted of such events as 
vv^ere then occurring. And Premier Lloyd 
George asked : " Are we to lapse back into 
the old national rivalries, animosities, and 
competitive armaments, or are we to initiate 
the reign on earth of the Prince of Peace? 
We must not allow any sense of revenge to 
override the fundamental principles of 
righteousness." 

Bitterness Grows 

A week after " inward unity of purpose " 
had been denied Mr. Wilson, Senator 
Lodge said of an antagonistic speech made 
by himself: "That speech was printed in 
the Italian, French and English papers, all 
commenting on it favorably." Presently a 
typical dispatch from Paris spoke of the 
American " squabble," and one from Lon- 
don of " the American controversy," and 
said: "The intentions attributed to Wilson 
by Roosevelt" had led to fears that "unless 
the air should be cleared the echoes of the 
[40] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

controversy will help play Germany's game 
of a division among the Allies." 

"Wilson Chills Senate" was the typical 
headline of a conservative paper when the 
President addressed that peace-ratifying 
body before starting on his pilgrimage to 
Europe. The language of the conservative 
press on the eve of his departure was of a 
kind which might have been used of a male- 
factor. The effect abroad was portrayed in 
the headline: "France Amazed by Attacks 
on Wilson." Senator Reed (Democrat) ex- 
pressed the opinion that a League of Na- 
tions would be treachery to this country 
worse than that of Benedict Arnold. Sena- 
tor Knox introduced a bill which assumed 
that we fought the war only to defend our 
rights on the sea and to " remove the Ger- 
man menace to our peace," and that we 
should forthwith retire from the scene, post- 
poning " any project for any general League 
of Nations." Senator Cummins exasperated 
because no Senator was a member of the 
Peace Commission, introduced a bill pro- 
viding that eight Senators should unoffi- 
cially accompany the peace delegates to 
Paris. Senator Sherman, indignant at the 
President's leaving the country, wanted the 
[41] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

office of President declared vacant. Colonel 
Roosevelt contributed : " As for the fourteen 
points, so far as the American people have 
expressed any opinion on them, it was on 
November 5 when they rejected them. 
What Mr. Wilson says of the fourteen 
points is sheer nonsense." 

All the critics disregarded the acceptance 
by our enemies of these fourteen points as 
the basis for the peace settlement. Up to 
the moment of the President's embarkation 
they insisted that he was flagrantly deserting 
his post. 

Europe's JV el come 

When, however, this explorer looking for 
a new world had, like Columbus, crossed 
the seas and had reached a continent where 
famine, anarchy, and murder reigned in the 
place of empires, great throngs, reaching 
out their arms, welcomed him as no leader 
of men had ever before been welcomed. In 
allied Europe, in Germany and Austria, 
and even in far-off India millions had seen 
the light which he had shed on the issues of 
the war, and now looked on him as the 
prophet-statesman of the world. The Presi- 
dent of the Municipal Council at Paris and 
[42] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

the Prefect of the Seine respectively called 
him "the upright man whose conscience 
fashioned his policy" and "the arbiter of 
the fate of civilization." Figaro says of 
him: "He deliberates in the light of 
Heaven, slowly and solemnly, before tak- 
ing sides, but when the prayer, which 
separates him for a moment from the com- 
munity of mortals, has come to an end, 
then all the virtues of action wake in 
him to form a swift and irrevocable de- 
cision." 

In England, for a time, at least, reaction 

became more in evidence. Mr. Lloyd 

George seeking reelection demanded an 

indemnity to England alone of $40,000,000,- 

000. How tremendous the issue is there as 

well as here is portrayed by Mr. L. P. Jacks 

in Land and Water in these eloquent words : 

"We can, if we choose, play the part which 

Germany intended to play. Our salvation 

depends on our not playing it. But the 

temptation is great. It looks at times as 

though, having the giant's strength, we 

meant to use it as a giant. Is that worthy 

of the glorious dead? These men did not 

lay down their lives for British trade. 

They died for Justice, and we owe =t to 

[43] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

them to see that Justice is established on 
the earth. It is not established yet. All 
that is accomplished so far is the overthrow 
of injustice; a great step towards the goal 
but not the goal itself. The work of our 
dead is not finished; it is just begun." 

The London Nation expresses its appre- 
ciation thus: "The President is the only 
ruler who, from the beginning of the war, 
has consistently laid down any moral doc- 
trine concerning it, or has sought to con- 
struct a settlement consistent with the good, 
not of one nation or set of nations, but of 
all. This design is in full harmony with 
the spirit of the political evangelism of 
America." 

The President said, September 27: "The 
counsels of plain men have been more 
simple and straightforward than the coun- 
sels of sophisticated men." In the critical 
weeks which have followed the signing of 
the armistice millions of plain men every- 
where have shown that they have seen a new 
light. It is a light which shone in "The 
New Freedom," published before there 
was any war and scoffed at but not read 
by sophisticated Americans; in the long 
and bravely unselfish waiting while weak 
[44] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

Mexico struggled toward self-government; 
in the slowness to anger before the momen- 
tous issues of the war were fully disclosed; 
in the illuminating interpretation of those 
issues when we at last bent ourselves to the 
burdens of the war; in our complete un- 
selfishness now as heretofore; in the calm 
and consistent assertion of fundamental 
principle, in high places and in low, on 
every occasion since an American President 
first set foot on European soil. 

The Conflict Now 

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Wilson at the 
Paris Peace Conference in urging a League 
of Nations, " the select classes of mankind 
are no longer the governors of mankind. 
The fortunes of mankind are now in the 
hands of the plain people of the whole 
world. Satisfy them and you have justified 
their confidence, not only, but have estab- 
lished peace. Fail to satisfy them, and no 
arrangement that you can make will either 
set up or steady the peace of the world. As 
I go about the streets here I see everywhere 
the American uniform. These men came 
into the war after we had uttered our pur- 
pose. They came as crusaders — not merely 
[45] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

to win a war, but to win a cause. I am 
responsible to them and I, like them, must 
be a crusader for those things, whatever it 
costs, and whatever it may be necessary to 
do in honor, to accomplish the object for 
which they fought." 

This insistence on fundamental principle 
has stood unshaken amid the Babel of dis- 
cordant voices, from Russia, from Italy, 
from France and, at times, from England. 
From time to time, the old order seems 
about to reestablish itself permanently. 
The old conceptions, the old struggles of 
force with force, the old ambitions, the old 
lusts for power and territory die hard. The 
counter-lusts of wrathful men make for 
anarchy and destruction so widespread as 
to threaten the whole structure of civiliza- 
tion. With the world thus strained, thou- 
sands of sophisticated Americans who be- 
lieve themselves Christians and pray in 
great churches that they may be brought " to 
that fair city of peace, whose foundations 
are mercy, justice and good-will," rise from 
their knees only to demand an eye for an 
eye, a tooth for a tooth. Under the guise of 
"retribution" they would inflict the ven- 
geance which the Almighty has reserved 
[46] 



THE GREAT ISSUE 

for Himself. They call across the ocean 
that the President does not represent the 
American people, that he was repudiated 
at the last election. They threaten to undo 
on his return whatever he may seem to have 
accomplished. Their vision has been nar- 
rowed to one conflict, that between them, the 
righteous, and the Germans, the unright- 
eous. New conflicts, however, already con- 
front them, the conflict between themselves 
and the Bolsheviki, between themselves and 
those with whom they disagree at home. 
The real issue has not followed exclusively 
the trenches of Northern France. It has 
always been, is now and ever will be in the 
hearts of men — everywhere. 

" If the light that is in you be darkness, 
how great is that darkness." 



[47] 



